


Tumblr Prompt Fills- Newmann

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-01 06:23:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16759684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Newmann snippets from recent tumblr prompts, various AUs.These are mostly very short bits, though any of the universes may get continued in future snippets. The notes for ch.1 will remain updated to show when different





	1. It Happened Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> Running tally of which chapters have which settings (canon or various AUs), for those interested only in certain 'verses:
> 
> Chapter One- 1930s AU  
> Chapter Two- 1910s AU  
> Chapter Three- Medieval/Fantasy AU  
> Chapter Four- Medieval/Fantasy AU  
> Chapter Five- 1930s AU  
> Chapter Six- Canon Compliant (for PR but not PRU)

“We need to talk about what happened last night.” Hermann hisses, grabbing Newt by the elbow and dragging him away from what had been a…

Well, okay, not a pleasant conversation, but one he was surviving.

“What about last night?” He asks innocently, just to watch Hermann’s face do that thing, that ‘how can you be so smart and so stupid and so infuriating’ thing. 

Newt likes Hermann– he adores him, really. He does. They’d started writing over some academic matter he hardly remembers now, because they’d discussed everything else since. Newt probably spent more on postage than on most of his basic expenses over the time they’d spent corresponding. And it wasn’t only academics! Hermann’s family had moved from Germany to England, Newt’s family had moved from Germany to America– well, his father and uncle had, and then Newt had been unceremoniously dumped upon them, but that had been for the best in the end, hadn’t it? They had both found themselves learning a new language and culture at about the same age. And so then Newt had decided to take the trip to England to actually meet the man in person, and that’s when everything went horribly wrong.

Newt isn’t sure how he came to be engaged to Hermann’s older sister. He also isn’t sure exactly how he came to be in Hermann’s bed. Both things happened last night, and as best as Newt can figure, he can blame the fact that alcohol was involved. Apparently during the time he’d spent on the boat over, prohibition had been repealed back home, but Newt had never had any opportunity to discover what, precisely, his tolerance for the stuff was. Right up until last night, when he’d gotten embarrassingly drunk at the Gottliebs’ piano, rendering his performance of ‘I Got Rhythm’ increasingly sloppy and erratic, and… 

The engagement is a blank to him, he’d found out that had happened when he’d finally crawled out of his hangover. But Hermann… Hermann he remembers in exacting detail, just not how it had began. The lines of his body, the softness of his eyes, the delicacy of his touch and the fire of his kiss, and… and all of it, all of it, all of it.

“Last. Night.” Hermann scowls. “Are there any other members of my family you were hell-bent on seducing?”

“No. Just one. The rest was kind of an accident.” He says. 

Hermann’s scowl just tightens.

“I mean you.” Newt adds quickly, reaching out to take his hand. “I mean you. Um… about your sister…”

“Please. Breaking engagements is practically a hobby of Karla’s. Since the age of nineteen, she has been collecting marriage proposals and discarding them like candy wrappers.” He scoffs, but he softens a little. “Me?”

“You.” He nods. Hermann squeezes his hand gently.


	2. Holiday

“You’re trembling.” Newton– Newt, the boy had said he liked to be called Newt– he whispers against Hermann’s ear, and curls in around him, and he’s…

He’s terribly warm. Which would help with the trembling except that he’s also…

He’s brilliant, and he’s lovely, his eyes are Hermann’s favorite color and his lips are the sort of lips poems get written about. At least if he were a lady someone would write poems about them. Hermann doesn’t write poetry, Hermann’s father doesn’t approve of poetry, Hermann is supposed to be focusing on serious things, that’s why his father sent him to University here, because of the maths program. Because Hermann is going to be a serious man, perhaps an engineer, like his serious father, who didn’t send him to school so that he could be distracted by young men.

Young men who crawl into Hermann’s bed in the middle of the night because it’s cold, and even with the fire, Hermann’s teeth had been chattering.

“I’m fine.” He says, but he doesn’t tell Newt to leave, either.

Their relationship has been… volatile, since they began rooming together, and yet he thinks Newt understands him. They don’t stay angry with each other, after the explosive fights that send them hurtling back to their own work, to achieving ever-higher heights… Once or twice, they have stood chest to chest, the both of them heaving with that bright, short-lived fury, and every fight only makes Hermann so much fonder of Newt, it really does. Once the anger evaporates, it leaves only admiration for Newt’s intellect, a match for his own. If anything, Newt may be more brilliant still, though not so disciplined, and Hermann longs to know his mind, to plumb his depths…

Sometimes, he looks at Newt and he thinks if he kissed him, Newt might kiss back. A mad thought to have… and yet, here Newt is, his full, pink lips touching Hermann’s ear. His arms about him.

“Are you? I can go back to my bed.” Newt teases.

“I– I wouldn’t want you to be too cold.” Hermann shakes his head, folding his own arm over Newt’s. Newt’s fingers are cool, but not icy, not like Hermann’s own. “You must have been cold, to come over here, I mean.”

“I must have been.”

“You… you should stay, then.”

“Very generous of you.”

For a moment, they’re both silent, though neither of them falls asleep. Hermann can tell Newt isn’t sleeping.

“Newton?”

“Yes, Hermann?”

“Are you going home when we break?”

“No. It’s too far… I’ll just be here. Why, will you?”

“You could come with me.” He says. His father likely won’t notice… Would they simply get along and have a nice, easy time, without studies to fight about? Or would they spend the whole break discussing scientific matters? Either way he would rather have Newt than not. “If– if it would be too cold here once I’m gone.”

Newt hugs him tighter. “Yes. I think it might.”


	3. The Tournament

“I thought you were dead.” Hermann rushes across the tent, weaving his way clumsily between cots, and those giving aid to the injured, stumbling a little at the end. He drops painfully to his knees, but he ignores the sting and the way it jars his hip and spine, falling against Newt. “You– you foolish boy! I thought you were dead!”

“I’m not.” Newt says. Sounds rather in too good a mood for someone who’d been knocked to the ground and trampled by real knights in the melee tourney, actual… actual big, tall walls of muscle in armor. Plate armor. Newt, with bits and pieces and mail for the rest, small and soft and with weak eyesight, how had he thought he could compete?

  
  
“Well I thought you were.” Hermann says, his voice watery. “You awful, stupid child, how could you do such a thing? How could you enter yourself in a tournament, didn’t you know how dangerous it would be?”

“I’m not afraid of dangerous.” Newt says, and he sounds as if he believes himself, despite all the bruises and bandages. 

“Newt…”

“And if I’d won, I could have asked the king for anything.”

“And he might not have granted it.” Hermann snaps. “What could you ask of him that would be worth all this? Stupid– stupid boy! What could he grant you that I couldn’t find a way to give, if you came to me? You never could have won, not– not the whole thing. You could have been killed–”

“No one’s ever killed in tourney fighting, though, are they?”

“Because they’re knights! Because they’re fighters, because they train for this, Newton! And you’re a little scholar, half-blind, barely knows how to hold a sword, you could have been. And then what would I– I mean, and then what– what would your father do?”

“There’s one thing you can’t do, that your father could.” Newt turns away. “I just… I wanted– Forget it. Foolish of me to try, I know. I’d hoped you would call me brave.”

“Foolish of you to hope.” Hermann sniffles. “What do you need? Money to send home? Permissions for something? A letter of introduction somewhere? That you never came to me–”

“Because I know it’s beyond you. Because you’ve complained it’s beyond you. Because you’ve no say in it.”

“Newton…” Hermann reaches up, tenderly touches Newt’s face, though Newt doesn’t turn to look at him, pride still wounded along with the rest of him. “He never would have agreed to it. If it was really something so grand as that, he’d have sent you off with some gold and a letter to get you in at any institution of higher learning to do as you pleased there. He wouldn’t… he wouldn’t give you anything so wonderful…”

“It’s the only chance I’d ever have. Short of… bringing home the head of a dragon. And I don’t think I could bring myself to kill a dragon.”

“I don’t think it would make any difference if you could.”

“If you were the eldest, or if you were a daughter, I know he wouldn’t throw you away on me no matter what I did. But couldn’t I ask? If I did something, if I won something, couldn’t I ask for the hand of a second son?”

Newt turns back to look up at him at that, so plaintive and so innocent that Hermann can hardly stand it.

“No.” He laughs, has to laugh, even if it’s wet and weak and heartbroken. “No, you couldn’t have. Not even a lame one.”

“Oh.”

“You read too many stories.” 

“Go ahead and say it, then. I did all this for nothing.”

“Brave boy.” Hermann tuts softly, kissing Newt’s brow. “But the next time you think of doing something foolish for me, ask me first if I think it should do you any good to go through with the plan.”


	4. First Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (basically the opposite of how they met in canon??)

“It was you the whole time.” 

Newt looks up guiltily, quill frozen. He’d spent the better part of the week making admittedly vicious corrections to bits of parchment left in the library, someone’s studies. Someone smart enough to bother with, but with a flawed understanding of the subject at hand. There’d been a back-and-forth after his first corrections, his help not especially appreciated. But he had imagined it was one of those snooty scholars, he hadn’t imagined he was making an academic enemy of the crown prince.

And even in his nightgown, short hair tousled into complete disarray, this is unmistakably the crown prince Hermann facing him down right now. He has the same features as the king, only more delicate, the queen’s coloring. Has his cane in one hand and a candle in the other. 

“Oh. Your highness! I didn’t–”

“How dare you?” He stomps over. “How dare you take my work and– and–”

“My notes would have been so much more respectful if I’d known who the notes belonged to!” Newt lies. 

“Taking my notes, scribbling all over them, the utter gall of your commentary, and do you know what the worst part is?”

He shakes his head, shrinking back as the prince leans over him. 

“The worst part is… you were actually correct.” Prince Hermann sighs, and he lowers himself into the chair beside Newt’s. “All of it… you were correct. Mind, if you thought to correct my mathematical proofs, you would find me infallible! If you thought to correct my work in physics, you would have quite the task set before you! If you thought to correct me on the movements of the heavens, you– But yes, in matters of mechanical engineering, chemistry, botany, I am merely… trying to round out my education a bit more.”

“Am I going to be publicly flogged?”

“No.” He laughs. “Unless you’d really like to be.”

“Not publicly.” Newt says, mentally kicking himself. “I mean, not flogged, either. I mean– Thank you, your highness?”

“You may call me Prince Hermann, if we should see each other during the day now and then. You may call me Hermann only, if you consent to tutor me in engineering. It would please my father if I were more serious about it. I find it unimaginably dull when compared to the stars, but perhaps you can change my mind.” Hermann smiles– smirks, really, he looks terribly smug given he’s asking Newt for help. “And what may I call you?”

“Newt, your highness. Hermann.”

“Newt?”

“Yes.” He says, and offers no other name. 

“Newt.” Hermann sighs, and gets to his feet. “So I shall call you, then. I really only came down here to try and catch you– I’m to bed. But I shall arrange it that your duties are altered to allow us to work together.”

“Hermann?” Newt rises– both because he thinks that you’re supposed to, if a lady or a royal stands, and because he wants to keep him from leaving too quickly.

“Yes, Newt?” Hermann turns back a moment, looks all smug and amused again.

“I know nothing about the stars.” He shrugs. “But you might tell me. When I help you with your studies, you might broaden mine. If it please you.”

“It will please me.” Hermann nods, and that smug look warms, just a little.


	5. Understandings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short bit

“Are you drunk?” Hermann asks, his nose wrinkling.

“You know I’m not.” Newt frowns, and he looks pathetic enough that Hermann steps aside and lets him in. “Not after last time.”

“I don’t know what else I’m supposed to think at this hour.” He tsks, locking the door once Newt has moved to sit on the low settee at the foot of his bed. “We… we’ve agreed…”

“We didn’t agree. You didn’t really allow me the room to debate.”

“There is nothing to debate. We made a mistake. Newton, if anyone had found me with you…”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad. You’re rich, anyone who saw us would have a vested interest in covering up your indiscretions–”

“ _My_ indiscretions. But you? Kicked out of the house you’re staying in, alone in a foreign country. At best. Or arrested and my name kept out of it. You’re lucky no one’s in the rooms next to mine, or you pounding on the door in the middle of the night would– Or you–”

“I thought we understood each other.” Newt folds in on himself, and Hermann sighs.

“We had a drunken night, that’s nothing to build an understanding on.”

“I meant your letters.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. They… they had had something of an understanding in those letters. Certainly not a romantic understanding! Certainly not whatever temporary madness had led to his falling into Newt’s bed, Newt’s arms… 

It had been after the engagement. He couldn’t really call it a proposal… just one of those things his sister engineered for her own amusement, but Hermann had been livid. That she would make Newt a part of her games, his Newt… What he’d intended to say, he doesn’t remember. Only that he’d kissed him and never looked back, not until… not until he had cleaned himself up, until he’d had time to think away from Newt’s side, to imagine the consequences he might never see, but which Newt surely would. He’d hurt him, he supposes, there’s no pretending otherwise, but he had had noble reasons, didn’t that count?

But now Newt is here, and… Hermann doesn’t know how to keep him at arms’ length when he’s living and breathing and real, in his room, and… and somehow wanting to give Hermann a second chance.


	6. Wake Up Call

“It’s three in the morning.” Hermann groans, pulling a pillow over his head. “Or if it’s not, it bloody well feels like it. _Newt_ , make it _stop_. There is nothing anyone could need us for that’s so important we can’t sleep in to a decent hour.”

“Unless it’s medical coming to tell us we’re dying.”

“If we are dying so quickly that they can’t wait three hours to tell us so, they should just let us die in our sleep, that would be the kind thing.”

Newt snorts, rolling out of bed and going to the door to knock in return. 

“Hey, asshole!” He shouts. “Breach is closed, go home!”

“… Newt?”

Newt realizes his error. Not in time, no, because he’s also fucking sleep deprived. This is Hermann’s room. And he slept here. And their drift is probably supposed to be hush-hush. Probably.

Maybe.

“It’s three in the morning!” He adds, avoiding the question of why he’s in Hermann’s room entirely.

“It’s noon, brother.” Tendo says.

“Well it’s– Well fuck off, dude, some of us didn’t get to sleep until after dawn!”

“None of us got to sleep until after dawn. Tell Hermann his old man’s en route to the ‘dome with a delegation from the PPDC, since you two are so cozy.”

“I don’t appreciate your tone!” Newt shouts, but he doesn’t hear anything more from the other side of the door, so he drags himself back to Hermann’s very comfortable bed, and worms his way into Hermann’s arms. “Did you get that?”

“Unfortunately. Now I’m sorry it wasn’t medical coming to tell me to settle my affairs…”


End file.
